Looking for teacher training ideas

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Permalink Reply by Darcie Priester on February 22, 2010 at 1:01pm

I did a short training with my staff on social bookmarking. I've uploaded it (as well as a brochure I found somwhere) and feel free to use any part of it. Common Craft has a great video explaining what social bookmarking is. I would also suggest interactive whiteboards, glogster, or itunes.

Attachments:

• Socialbookmarking.ppt, 18 KB
• socialbookmarking_7things.pdf, 67 KB

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Permalink Reply by Francine Safdeye on February 26, 2010 at 12:00pm

Thanks Karen. I decided to try Podcasting with them on Monday. hopefully they will see the benefit and will try it out! I will look at the handout you created!

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Permalink Reply by Colette Cassinelli on February 22, 2010 at 2:16pm

You could easily spend an whole hour on social bookmarking, annotations, shared Diigo groups. Here is an excellent resource and handout http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/Social-Bookmarking-and-Annotating

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Permalink Reply by Laura Jarra on February 26, 2010 at 4:56pm

You could also create a survey forms, quizes and/or questionnaires using a form processor site like:
http://www.elbowspace.com
http://www.formbreeze.com
http://www.fospace.com

I believe all of these sites have a free level.

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Permalink Reply by Francine Safdeye on February 23, 2010 at 7:32am

WOW! Thanks for all the advice. I will definitely look into all these and will use them as well!

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Rita Oates on February 23, 2010 at 7:34am

Teacher Forums at ePals would provide interesting perspectives in multiple subjects, with postings from both US teachers and those in 199 other countries. The Teacher Forums are free and cover multiple topics. Your teachers would need to "join" ePals (free) to get a user name and teacher posting abilities. An automatic language translation feature allows for teachers from Latin America, China, etc. to write comments and for your teachers to translate them to and from 35 languages.

It would be interesting for you to get a user name and post a few questions before the workshop so you could show what kind of answers you get.
Or they could spend a few minutes searching through the existing posts in their subject area and see what other teachers are saying, then share with the whole group some ah-has. It's a way to encourage "craft talk" as in "how can I be a better math/social studies/etc. teacher?" and communicate with others who are experienced and capable teachers.

Note that they can read the Student Forums, but as teachers are not allowed to post on them!
ePals also has Parent Forums.

This is what some people call "low threshold technology" for the mass of teachers, including the reluctant and the techno-fearful. It doesn't take a huge jump from what they know how to do to learn to do this, and it helps move some of them along the continuum from "no technology" to "some technology use." You don't get a newbie to run a four-minute mile...they have to crawl and walk first!

After that, you might show them Classroom 2.0, which is more complex in structure, but has a logical progression from the Teacher Forums in ePals to wider use in a teacher-only community. Finally, you might show them English Companion Ning (great for English teachers) and other subject-area Nings that are also for teachers to learn from other teachers.

Remember that high school teachers "teach the subject" and not the child (as elementary teachers do) so expect them to be very focused on "US History" or "American Lit" rather than "juniors." The EC Ning got an award and is a really terrific resource for English teachers. (Also good is the NCTE Ning.)

Maybe others could suggest good Ning communities for math, science, social studies, etc.

If you wanted to quickly get usernames for all the teachers in ePals, go to www.epals.com and click below the "Join Now" button on "Schools and Districts" link. Then you can fill in a form about the school, and that way quickly get an account set up for each teacher. If you have other questions, the tech support people can answer through that form.

You might want to do a quick survey about what tech tools they know and which they would like to learn about....really just two open-ended questions....to get a sense of where they are now If they can't name any tools, you have a better sense of where to start. GOOD LUCK!

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Permalink Reply by Francine Safdeye on February 26, 2010 at 12:02pm

Thanks Rita. I took your advice and sent out a quick survey. Unfortunately not everybody responded. But I decided to teach them podcasting because that was what the majority wanted. Next I will do Social Bookmarking.
I have talked to a few people about ePals at one of the schools and there is a little interest. The problem is that when it comes to actually planning for an activity and doing it, teachers don't do it....

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Permalink Reply by Jay Noggle on February 23, 2010 at 11:14am

"I need a tool that is applicable to most subjects (Science, History, Math, English....)"

Because of this, I still say evernote.com.

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Permalink Reply by Cameron Foster on February 25, 2010 at 4:55am

Google docs, reader and calendar.

Priceless

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Permalink Reply by Carol Arcomano on February 25, 2010 at 12:30pm

I agree - you can't go wrong with anything. With Google Apps there are some many ways the students (and teachers) can work on projects, collaborate and interact with one another in and out of the classroom. Create a gmail account and you've got access to google docs, calendar, Blogger Google Map, Google Earth, iGoogle, Google news, Picasa, Google Reader, Search, the ability to create custom web pages....It's almost endless. Of course, your school has to make it available to use it. My school does not allow it.

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